Darkness And Silence
by laufeeyson
Summary: With a broken crew, it's difficult to get to places you need to be, but sometimes it's necessary for a problem to arise before something can be solved. The USS Deveren runs into a problem while answering a distress signal, and they end up lost, but is it possible to get home at all?
1. Chapter 1

After receiving the order to investigate the long-range distress call, everyone on the ship had headed to their stations, except Lieutenant Chandler, who was busy laughing over a pool table. The table was positioned in the middle of a bar-like room, it was an old fashioned ornament in a rather modern place. The green of the table's rough surface did not at all coincide well with the surroundings of the room-with the grey walls and moving images, the technological advances behind the bar and the silver polished tables, complete with sets of chairs at the back of the room. Chandler looked to a dark-haired man opposite him, rolling the cue ball, and a red ball around in one hand while he spoke.  
"Y'know I only _let_ you win," Marcus said humorously towards the Cardassian man that he'd been playing his game with, pointing the cue at him which was held in his free hand.  
"Sure you did, now come on, pay up," the Cardassian requested, holding his hand out for the bet that needed paying.  
It was obvious that the Lieutenant didn't really intend to pay this man in anyway what-so-ever.  
"Sorry, I would, but I have a star ship to get to," Marcus replied, patting the man on the shoulder, "maybe next time," he continued in a hushed whisper, before turning to walk off.  
The Cardassian male didn't let him leave though; he grabbed Marcus' shoulder and pulled him around to face him again. "You're not going anywhere, a bet's a bet," the man demanded. But as Chandler continued to refuse, the Cardassian threw a punch at his face, the force not only driving a gash against his cheek, but pushing him down onto the floor. As the Lieutenant's body hit the ground, the two balls were dropped on the laminated surface, rolling away from him and getting lodged underneath the low pool table.

It seemed at this time, the captain of the star ship which Marcus had been assigned to, just happened to be passing. It was fairly obvious that both men, the Cardassian and the Lieutenant, were both in fact supposed to be on the ship. But instead, he found them in a bar on spacedock, squabbling over some kind of game.  
The captain walked over to the two men, seeing Chandler on the floor, he rose an eyebrow, "what's going on here?" he requested, looking between the two men.  
"This man refuses to pay up," the Cardassian responded, gesturing obscenely to Marcus-just picking himself up from the floor, while also wiping the blood from his face.  
"You know there are rules against gambling, Lieutenant, Ensign," the captain said, glancing first from Chandler, and then to the Cardassian.  
The Cardassian responded with a simple, yet guilty sounding; "yes."  
"Get to your station," the captain said, pointing to the Cardassian, then looking to the Lieutenant, "You, I want a word with you."

The Cardassian chuckled slightly as he walked off, but he'd eventually headed off down to engineering, where he was meant to be.

The captain looked sternly at Marcus, who was busy straightening himself up a little, dusting down his outfit, sorting his hair and removing blood from his cheek. His now stained fingers ended up wiped in his jacket, luckily the fact that it was red saved people from noticing it.  
"I thought you would have known better, you are a distinguished member of Star Fleet, after all, Mister Chandler," the captain stated.  
"I'm sorry, captain," Marcus replied, "although it was the Cardassian who sugges-"  
"I don't want to hear any excuses from you, pilot." Hunter cut him off before he could continue, "I was warned about your disrespectful approach to rules when you were assigned to my ship, if you're going to stay at the position you're at, I don't want to see any disobedience from you, at all, do you understand?"  
The Lieutenant gave a nod, "yes, sir," he replied.  
"Now get to your station."

Marcus gave a slightly frustrated sigh while he was walking towards the turbo lift, he knew being in a higher ranking position such as his, it would require responsibilities. Maybe he would be grateful for the position later on, but right now, he wished he could have been let off as easily as that Cardassian had. He was pretty sure he'd had no trouble making enemies in his first few moments on this mission, that Cardassian wouldn't give up in trying to get his pay, and that would end up causing problems.  
Chandler exited the turbo lift, heading towards the helm of the bridge, where he had to relieve the crewman already sitting there. He looked around briefly, he could see the numerous other officers sat around the bridge-the Vulcan female sat at the tactics post, the other few Humans around the room, and the Andorian First Officer, sat around seven metres behind him in the centre of the room. When thought about, it was disgraceful that the captain was not the first one here, especially since he was giving lectures to Chandler on 'responsibilities' earlier. Chandler gave a small sigh and sat down at the conn, he pressed a few buttons to log himself in, and then sat back to wait for orders.

It was a few moments later when the captain came onto the bridge, of course there was that one person who was a little too formal—that stood up an announced in a rather strange accent that he had arrived. Marcus looked up to see the captain taking his seat, and run through the preparations, to make sure that all stations were ready and working.

"All systems normal, captain," the Lieutenant stated when it came to his turn to speak, he didn't receive an answer though—how polite.

"Take us out, Chandler," the captain ordered, his voice sounding empty. He obviously hadn't vented enough of his anger with Marcus, so he decided he was going to be a bit of a jerk to him for the rest of the flight. Unless of course he was always like that, which was possible.

"Yes, sir," Chandler replied, turning to his console and pressing a few buttons, "separating from space dock," he announced, sticking to regulations. Even though he'd done that action correctly, there was a massive vibration that ran throughout the ship, causing most people in the bridge to lurch towards the view screen, or anyone else in the ship standing up to lose their balance and perhaps tumble to the floor. Chandler managed to support himself with the console in front of him, moving his thumb so he didn't accidentally hit any buttons. He ran his eyes over the console screen to make sure it hadn't been him who had done that, it definitely wasn't, because everything was in order; and he was the best pilot in the academy for a long time.

"Lieutenant, what have you done? You better not have broken this ship already," the captain accused, frowning at the back of Chandler's head. Of course, because it's perfectly natural for a senior officer and highly attuned, degree-holding pilot to screw up the first thing you ever learn in star fleet academy.

Marcus glanced at the captain, "I haven't done anything, sir," he said, hiding most of his anger through his composed expression and turning back to the panel to investigate what happened, "it seems that there was a power surge just after I separated the ship."

The captain tilted his head slightly, "control?" he was obviously asking for a second opinion.

"He's right, captain," the female voice answered, "there was an overload of energy, and apparently it originated from engineering."

"That's not surprising," the captain replied frustrated and tapped into the communicating system beside his chair, " Lieutenant Morris, what on Kronos is going on down there?"

"I'm sorry, captain, there was a malfunction in the docking systems, we've got it all fixed now," Morris responded apologetically, you could hear his attempt to hide back the nervous shake in his voice. From that, Chandler was able to deduce that he was probably on his first service as a senior officer.

"Thank you, Hunter out," the captain disconnected the comm. system and turned to Chandler again, "set course for the distress signal, warp six," the captain commanded.

"Aye, sir," Chandler replied with a muttered annoyance under his breath. He tapped in a few instructions into the console and allowed the ship to slide gently away from the space dock. When he'd distanced the ship far enough, he activated the warp engines, "co-ordinates locked, ready to initiate warp sequence, sir," Chandler said to the captain, not bothering to look at him.

"Let's go," the captain replied.

Chandler gave a nod and headed the ship towards the distress signal.

* * *

Chandler had been allowed to leave the bridge for the time that they were in warp; their estimated arrival time was three hours, so he'd been given two hours away from the conn - mainly because the captain wanted to speak to him later about 'discipline'. He felt like the captain was picking on him because of one incident with a Cardassian, it wasn't even his fault; the Cardassian wouldn't play a game without having a wager on it.

Chandler headed towards his quarters, but was stopped in the corridor by a small group of people, two boys and a girl. The two boys wore yellow shirts, and Chandler guessed they had come from engineering, one was slightly taller than the other and had a leaner, less muscular appearance than the other. The woman had a profession in medicine, that was easy to tell from her hair tied back in a bun and the medical tricorder in her belt.

"Can I help you?" Chandler asked, for some reason, he felt he knew what they were going to ask.

"We heard you picked a fight with Ensign Lotra," the dark haired, shorter man said, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm guessing Lotra is the Cardassian fellow, yes?" Chandler asked, looking between the three of them, when one nodded he continued, "No, I didn't pick a fight with him, if that's what he told you. All I did was refuse to gamble with him, and in return he punched me in the face."

"I don't think it was clever of you to refuse him in any way," the dark haired man continued.

"Why's that?" Chandler asked, folding his arms and looking down at him.

"Because he's violent and he holds grudges," the man replied.

"Thank you for the warning, but if you ever speak like that again, I might have to report you to the captain for spreading rumours," Chandler answered, then walked off—changing his course of direction for sickbay. He had to deal with the scuff on his face, to make sure people didn't think he'd been in a fight.

Marcus entered sickbay, and found it was empty aside from the doctor and a couple of nurses. The doctor was a woman of young age, with bright orange hair rolling in waves down to her shoulders. She was beautiful, more than average; Chandler guessed it would at least give him something to think about while she was fixing up his face. The doctor saw him walk in and walked over to him.

"What have you done to yourself this time, Lieutenant?" the doctor asked, raising an eyebrow.

It occurred to Marcus that he'd actually seen her before . . . of course; she had been the doctor on the last ship he'd been assigned to. That meant though that she knew him well, and would know how to get around him easily. The last time he'd seen her, was when he'd broken his leg after experiencing a rather bad landing in a shuttle. Her real name was Doctor Charlie Mauve.

"Oh, fell out with a friend," Marcus replied, grinning.

"I should have known," Charlie mentioned, picking up a medical tricorder and a couple of things from a counter, "sit," she demanded, pointing to the end of a bed.

Marcus followed the instructions and sat down on the edge of the bed, still smiling, "You look as beautiful as ever," he stated.

"That's because I don't let people punch me in the face," she answered, running him over with the tricorder as regulations required.

"You're welcome," Marcus said sarcastically with a sigh, she was the same as always—she didn't even reject him anymore, she just insulted him. He didn't really mind that though, he liked the humour, it lightened the mood.

"So who did you annoy?" the doctor asked, sorting out the required medicine to speed up the rate of regeneration.

"That Cardassian in engineering, Ensign Lotra," Marcus replied, grinning.

"You're really good at irritating people."

"Thank you."

"That wasn't a complement."

"It sounded like one to me."

Charlie grabbed him by the shoulder and looked him sternly in the eye, "you have to change that, if you're going to keep annoying people and getting into fights, you'll only be pulled of duty, maybe even thrown in the brig. You should look after yourself more."

Chandler looked confused, and a little insulted, "I'm only trying to have some fun."

"Yeah, and that fun might end up killing you, just be careful, alright?" Charlie replied, before fixing up his face. "You can go."

Chandler looked to Charlie, still confused by her words—he'd never seen her as a friend, but she definitely sounded like one right now. That or she was acting as an overprotective mother. He finally stood up and left though, before heading back to his quarters.


	2. Chapter 2

Chandler finally arrived outside of his quarters, it had been a busy day, which he would have preferred to spend at home, or at the pub with his friends—of what little he had—than on Deveren. He opened the door, well at least he tried to, but his code didn't want to work. Maybe he had the wrong room? Chandler checked the number, but it appeared to be the correct room, so he tried again, typing in the number slowly. The bleep and the computers voice stating 'Code incorrect, please try again' announced to him that his code really wasn't working.

"That's strange . . . " he said to himself, and then gave a shrug. He didn't really care that it wasn't working; he'd find something else to do, then check with the security team that it wasn't a mistake.

He turned to find his way to the canteen room, where he'd probably sit by himself, but it was better than standing aimlessly in the corridor. That was when he was stopped by Ensign Lotra, by his face Chandler was able to tell he wasn't happy. The Cardassian may have been a part of the security team as well as a member of the engineering side of Star Fleet, it would explain the reason his code was not working.

"Ensign, if you're here looking for a fight, I am really not inter-"

"I don't want to hear your opinion," Lotra said, holding up a hand to cut the Lieutenant off.

"Rude . . . " Marcus commented offhand.

"Shut your mouth," Lotra growled at him, it seem he had a disregard for the rankings.

Chandler folded his arms and rose and eyebrow at Lotra, leaning back against the door to his room, which wasn't going to open on him. "Well, what do you want then?" Chandler asked.

"You're side of the deal, paid, now," Lotra demanded, his jaw set, and he looked like he was trying to be intimidating.

"Did you not hear the captain earlier, no gambling," Chandler repeated, giving an apologetic look, "and anyway, what the hell am I supposed to pay you with?"

"I want that," Lotra said, pointing the Chandler's wrist, which was covered by his shirt.

On Chandler's wrist, though, underneath the shirt, was a metallic band, made of thin strips of light metal, wound together in a plaid pattern. It belonged to his only close friend, the one who past away when he was younger, and the one he still remembered and spoke about like he was still alive today.

"You can't have it," Chandler said sternly.

"If you're not going to give it to me, then I'm going to take it from you, you made a deal, remember," Lotra pointed out, still in his growling, determined tone of voice."

"Well you're not having it, and I'm _certainly _not going to let you take it from me," Chandler replied, "this has sentimental value and it's not going to be worth anything to you."

Lotra didn't look please with this, and he punched the Lieutenant's newly fixed face, breaking open the skin again. He proceeded to grab Chandler's arm, trying to pull it towards him against the Lieutenant's will. When he resisted, the Cardassian started kicking, forcing Chandler to the floor before kneeling on top of him—his body weight stopping the Lieutenant from being able to fight back, and even stopping him from getting up. The Ensign's weight on his ribs was painful, and it was forcing the air from his lungs; he could only hope that someone would come down the corridor in time to see this, to be a witness so that Lotra wouldn't be able to claim that Chandler was the one who started the fight.

"Ensign Lotra, Lieutenant Chandler, what are you doing?" A male voice announced from just down the corridor, as if answering Chandler's prayers.

Lotra soon backed off, pulling away from the Lieutenant, and walking off down the corridor while Marcus struggled to get air back into his lungs.

The man who had split up the fight rushed over the Chandler, looking over him. "Are you alright?" he asked, tilting his head.

"I don't think he likes me very much," Chandler replied humorously.

"No kidding," the man answered, supporting Chandler and helping him sit up, "what did he want?"

Chandler looked to him; he had dark brown hair and faintly tanned skin, almost the complete opposite to Marcus' fair complexion, with blond hair and pale skin. He also seemed quite young though, younger than Chandler anyway, at least by a few years. His eyes were dark brown, almost black, as well.

"He wanted my wrist band, I have a debt to pay off that he didn't really want to give me time to do," Chandler replied, groaning as he climbed to his feet.

"What the hell is he, some kind of hybrid Ferengi?" the man asked, giving a laugh, "all about the profit and not the game? Yeah, I heard about the pool match." He stood back once he felt that Chandler was able to stand up on his own.

"You did? From who?" Chandler looked a little frustrated that this rumour—which was true—was going around, because the only person they could have got it from was from Lotra.

"Someone in engineering, everyone thinks that you attacked Lotra," he answered, "well, except me after seeing what happened just now."

"Thanks I guess," Chandler said, almost sarcastically, though he did mean it as it meant at least someone was on his side. "So what's your name?" he asked.

"James Morris," the man answered.

"Shouldn't you be down in engineering, fixing the clamping problems?" Marcus asked with an accusing grin.

"Hah, no, I was allowed a break, I've been on my feet since four," James replied.

"Well then, Morris, let's go put those feet up and get a nice cup of coffee," Chandler said, putting his arm over Morris' shoulder and heading towards the canteen.

Morris shrugged his arm off and stopped walking, folding his arms and looking at Chandler, "just 'cause I helped you, doesn't mean I want to be close to you. I know what you're like," Morris continued, frowning, "people talk about you a lot for your reckless approach to rules, and I don't want to get involved in that."

Chandler looked hurt, for a moment, he thought he'd found a friend, but maybe he'd been hoping to soon and was being optimistic. "Alright . . . " he said, giving a shrug, and walking off, not saying anything else to the man.

Chandler now sat in the canteen, frowning at the cup of tea in front of him. It hadn't been touched and it was getting rather cold by now. He didn't really mind being alone much, he'd grown used to it, but sometimes it was nice to know there was someone that could back you up if you needed help. And Chandler wanted to change, that was true, he wanted to be a better man, but if everybody insisted on treating him like the same person, what was the point in trying?

He could feel eyes on the back of his head, obviously the other people in the room knew about what was happening between him and Lotra, and they were probably informed by him to make Chandler look like the bad one. He finally picked up his tea, but he could feel that the liquid was cold on his lips, and put it down again. Chandler wasn't usually so emotionally overwhelmed by the things people said to him, maybe it was because Morris had given him hope and then taken it away, but whatever the case he couldn't let that affect his work or his personality.

A bleeping noise sounding from his comm. badge snapped him out of his thoughts, someone was trying to contact him. "This is Captain Hunter to Lieutenant Chandler, please respond."

The Lieutenant gave a sigh and tapped his comm. badge in order to reply, "Chandler here, what can I do for you?"

"I want to see you in my ready-room this instant," Hunter replied, he didn't sound very happy.

"Yes sir, on my way," Chandler replied, tapping his badge again in order to cut the communications. He gave a frustrated sigh, and, leaving his cup on the table, went to see what the captain wanted.

When Chandler arrived at the Captain's ready-room, he pursed his lips, it was a little awkward to be standing on the bridge awaiting access because everybody around you wondered why on Earth you would be there. Chandler pressed a button to alert the captain of his presence, and was granted access. He stepped inside, and was greeted by the sight that he wished he hadn't been—Lotra was stood in the captain's office, covered in wounds that Chandler hadn't seen before, and Chandler could remember that he had blood on his face.

Hunter turned to Lotra, "Ensign, repeat what you just told me," he said, but his eyes kept flickering back to Chandler.

"Like I said already, Lieutenant Chandler attacked me in the corridor, saying that he wanted to 'get his own back for earlier', so to speak. He said that if I told anyone, that he would further the beatings, but, of course I'm not one to break the rules without accepting responsibility," Lotra stated.

Chandler was beginning to feel sick with Lotra's lies, he had to refrain from interrupting and saying it wasn't true—if he did, he'd only be marked down as a liar himself.

"The evidence is clearly my body, I mean, I wouldn't do that to myself, I can't work well if I'm injured. And it's true, I did fight back, but only in self defence," Lotra stated, gesturing to Chandler's cheek, at which the captain nodded for him to continue, "also, I cannot be certain, but I have a hunch that he was the one who sabotaged the docking systems of the ship, as nobody in engineering has touched the power systems since they came aboard, especially not I."

Chandler was definitely ready to fight back now, Lotra accusing him of sabotage? He wasn't a traitor, especially not on a ship of which he was assigned to the bridge of. He knew then it must have been Lotra, if he was using Chandler as a shield, it was obvious hat it would be him that caused the trouble in the first place.

The captain turned to Chandler, "Lieutenant, what do you have to say for yourself?"


End file.
